


Is Nothing

by MollokoPlus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 2017 Winter Holiday Gift Exchange, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 16:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13058220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollokoPlus/pseuds/MollokoPlus
Summary: She narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew she knew he was hiding something. It was true, though. Mostly.





	Is Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redbrunja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbrunja/gifts), [DunkinLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkinLove/gifts).



By the time they stumbled up the steps and across the porch to the door, neither one could have said for certain who was holding up whom. All either one wanted was a chance to sit down, rest, assess their injuries, treat what they could, and fall into a bed. Warmth would be nice, too, and maybe a hot beverage. And, of course, the extraction team. But first they had to remember which rock under which shrub covered the hidden key. At least it was daylight, which made the search much easier. That also meant they’d been nearly six hours on foot, through chilly drizzles and sprinkles, since their stolen escape vehicle had sputtered to a stop, out of gas. That had also been their last communication with the extraction team; they’d been out of range since then.

Illya guided Gaby – or did Gaby guide Illya? – over to the table, and both of them collapsed onto mismatched plain uncushioned wooden chairs. Illya looked around the room while Gaby simply rested her head on the knuckles of her fisted hands, elbows on the table. There was a heater, a plain metal box on legs, situated on a small square of tiles to protect the wooden floor of the rest of the cabin, and a box of wood and kindling nearby. The kitchen area contained a two-burner stove of a type usually used for camping and a small supply of fuel, some cabinets, a small sink with a pump handle, and a couple of oil lamps on the cabinet top between the stove and the sink. There was an oil lamp on the kitchen table, and another on the cabinet beside the small bed.

Exhausted though he was, he forced himself to stand again and began searching the cabinets. A box of matches was quickly located, and he went straight from there to the little heater and got a fire going. He placed one of the chairs in front of the heater, then helped Gaby over to it so she could start to warm up, meager though the fire was at this stage, and she gave him a small grateful smile as she shivered. He found some blankets in the cabinet near the bed and, after easing her out of her jacket, shook one out to wrap around her while he rummaged through the tiny kitchen area.

He located an assortment of towels and washcloths; a fairly large, handled pot; a tea kettle; a first-aid kit of surprising size, a couple of bars of soap, and even a kit for cleaning firearms, all coated with a fine layer of dust. After shaking out one of the washcloths, he pumped some water, washed his hands, washed out the slightly dusty pan, filled it, and set it on the stove to heat, then carried the towels and first-aid kit to the table. Another search of the kitchen-area cabinets turned up a tin of loose tea, a tea ball, and a couple of mugs. Some spoons, mismatched bowls, a can opener; there wasn’t much here. After dislodging the remains of a former inhabitant of the kettle and washing it out, he filled it with water, lit the stove’s other burner, and set the kettle to boil.

Illya returned to the table and set about examining the contents of the first-aid kit, which turned out to not only be large, but well stocked, too, with an eclectic mix of both British and American supplies. He pulled out gauze pads in three sizes, a couple of gauze rolls of different widths, cotton swabs, tincture of iodine, something called mercurochrome, scissors, adhesive tape, aspirin, tweezers, and adhesive bandage strips, and set them all out on the table in the order he was likely to use them. After examining the bottle, he decided against the mercurochrome, and put it back.

He returned to the stove and tested the temperature in the pot of water by simply poking his finger in it, and decided it was warm enough to start cleaning Gaby’s wounds. He coaxed her back over to the table, where she promptly put both arms on it, then laid her head on her crossed forearms, her hands loosely fisted and placed thumb-side up rather than palm down.

“Gaby.” Gently, carefully, he eased one arm out, unbuttoning the cuff and shoving the sleeve up her arm and out of his way so he could tend to the scrapes and scratches on her hand. The wrist had swollen, and while he was no doctor of medicine, he had enough experience with injuries to himself and to others to suspect a sprain. He didn’t recall seeing anything like a splint in the kit, but it did include an elastic “Ace” bandage and something called a “triangular bandage,” which he had determined from the box’s illustrations could be fashioned into a sling if the arm needed the support. In the meantime, he washed the dirt and blood away from the open wounds, treated them with iodine, and wrapped her hand with gauze. Once that was done, he wrapped the wrist with the elastic bandage, and decided that was probably support enough.

“Gaby, I need you to sit up.”

Reluctantly, she raised her head, blinking blearily at him. “Illya? What happened to your face?” She reached out to touch his forehead, but he ducked back away from her.

“Is nothing, only bruises. Let me finish this, please.”

She let him take her other arm in hand to wash away the blood and grime obscuring more scrapes and scratches. She rarely whimpered or otherwise verbalized any pain, but she occasionally winced and attempted to pull away from his ministrations, especially when he wiped the open wounds with the iodine. And each time she did, he drew back, apologized, and murmured encouragement, on one occasion even placing a soft kiss to her hand, insisting “will make it better” to coax a small smile from her. The room was warming well now, and he helped her take off her shirt and re-wrap the blanket around her.

Then, even more gently, he began cleaning her face, dabbing carefully, his motions almost a caress, around her scratched and bruised cheeks, her bloodied and swollen nose – at least it didn’t appear to be broken – the small cut on her forehead just at her hairline, the determined but battered chin which, with the heels of both hands, had taken the brunt of a bad fall.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “come to bed.”

She protested only slightly, with a groan, then turned in the chair to use the table and the chair back to push herself upright, but he intervened, helping her stand, then lifted her into a bridal carry. Of course they ended up the wrong way around, her legs draped over his right arm, and the headboard to his right. He needed to get her out of the rest of those chilly, damp clothes anyway.

She had been limping earlier, so he took extra care while removing her boots, in case the limp was due to injury and not fatigue. Her heavy canvas trousers had protected her legs from the scrapes and scratches, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised to see bruises on her knees tomorrow. Finally he had her stripped to her lingerie and bundled in another of the blankets he’d had warming before the heater.

“Stay here; I’m fixing tea. Maybe there is whisky, too.”

“No, no whisky.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, but returned to the kitchen area and prepared a cup of tea for her. While it steeped, he emptied the pan he’d used to wash her wounds, rinsed and refilled it, then put it on to heat for his own wash water.

“Illya,” Gaby began thoughtfully.

“Da?”

“You were stabbed.”

“No, is nothing, only scratch,” he denied quickly, then carried the mug to her after removing the tea ball. “Is hot,” he warned, “but it will warm your hands while it cools to drink.”

Gaby accepted the mug, but quickly decided it was still too hot to close her hands around even through the wrappings, so she set it on the small bedside cabinet, and rearranged herself to sit cross-legged on the bed, tucking her feet under her. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew she knew he was hiding something.

It was true, though. Mostly. He hadn’t been stabbed, if “stabbed” meant “hole poked in.” His jacket, yes; his shirt, yes; but himself, no. What he had was a knife-edge slice, an oversized paper cut, which had come when he’d shoved his opponent’s arm aside and the man’s hand had turned just enough to raise the sharpened edge toward Illya.

Illya went back to the kitchen to empty and rinse the tea ball for his own tea, and rummaged around, not sure if he was looking for anything specific or merely curious or simply avoiding those narrowed eyes and the questions he was sure would follow, as he waited for his own wash water to heat and his tea to brew. A container of sugar cubes, some tins of roast beef and stews, a shaker of salt, and a small jar of jam were all the kitchen had to offer in foodstuffs; Waverly might consider re-stocking this cabin soon. Maybe he should have sweetened her tea, even though he knew she didn’t normally take it sweet. He would definitely sweeten his own, indulging himself with the jam. At least they wouldn’t starve while awaiting extraction, if the team took more than a few hours to come for them. He glanced over at her periodically while he searched, keeping an eye on her, and had the distinct impression that if she were wearing sunglasses, she’d be sliding them down her nose so that she could glare at him over the tops. She didn’t believe him, and there wouldn’t be a moment’s peace for him if the extraction team included medics.

But the questions didn’t come, and it was only after she dozed off that he actually attempted to attend to his own injuries. He hadn’t found a mirror in any of his searches, but he could tell from the tenderness and swelling on his forehead that it had taken a beating when he’d been slammed face first into that wall. And that knife wound just above his waist was a _little_ more than the “only a scratch” he’d insisted to Gaby, though it truly wasn’t a stabbing and hadn’t gone very deep. But it was definitely messy, definitely painful, and in an awkward location for self-treatment.

Finally he had his own injuries treated as well as he could manage by himself, put away the remains of the first-aid kit, and returned the kit to the shelf where he’d found it, then stirred a small dab of the jam into his tea. He checked on Gaby, saw that she was still sleeping, and draped her damp clothes and his own damp jacket on chairs in front of the little heater. Once that was done, he set himself to washing out the pan he’d used to clean their injuries, doing the best he could with only cold water and the bars of soap for sanitation, then dried it and put it away. The towels and wash cloths he rinsed as thoroughly as he could, then draped them over a chair to dry. He’d already begun to suspect that Waverly had the little cabin checked fairly frequently by a sympathetic local, not so often as to keep everything dust free, but enough to keep things stocked and reasonably clean.

She woke a short time later, in some pain, so he encouraged her to take one of the aspirin he’d kept out of the kit, having her wash it down with the remains of her now cool tea, and sat on the bed next to her, soothing her with slow, gentle strokes on her shoulders and back, until she drifted off again. She must be exhausted, he decided, if she slept so comparatively easily.

Satisfied that she was sleeping, he eased himself off the bed and returned to the table, where he gathered their weapons to clean them and to assess their ability to defend themselves should they be found by anyone other than the extraction team. Once that was done, he settled down to work through chess puzzles in his mind, since there were no books or magazines to peruse, and the only other reading materials consisted of the packaging on the foodstuffs and first-aid materials and the small instructional pamphlet in the kit. But he found he couldn’t focus, exhausted as he was and still in some pain – he was willing to admit to that in the privacy of his own thoughts – in both his head and his side, so he fixed another cup of tea and contented himself with keeping the fire going. The room was warmer than he preferred for himself, but he was more concerned with keeping Gaby comfortable than with his own comfort.

He checked on her often, not simply looking over at her from his place at the table, but also padding softly across the space between them to look on her as she slept. He was surprised and grateful she’d turned down his offer of whisky – not that he’d found any in his searches through the cabinets anyway – even though he was well aware she often used whisky or vodka or even gin to attempt to counter her frequent insomnia. He was just glad she was able to get _some_ sleep while they waited, knowing that fatigue could keep even the strongest from resting well. Illya himself had been awake for more than twenty-four hours now, and Gaby for nearly that long.

They shouldn’t have been out so late. They’d planned the infiltration carefully, but that hadn’t kept it from going sour on them. They had found what they’d gone after, and two rolls of film lay tucked in a hidden pocket in Illya’s jacket. But the security staff had done something out of the ordinary, varied their routine, and Illya and Gaby barely managed to escape reasonably intact, although not without a fight.

She was just waking again when Illya heard noises outside the cabin. She stared at him in confusion momentarily before ducking away from him as he rose and grabbed his weapon, unsuccessfully attempting to hide a smile.

“Peril! I know you’re in there!”

Illya strode over to the door, his UNCLE Special in hand, and cautiously opened it just enough to peer out. Solo was just in view, hands raised slightly and held away from holstered weapons. The extraction team accompanying Solo was arrayed behind him in a half circle, also keeping their hands away from their holsters. Illya opened the door the rest of the way and beckoned the team forward.

“Peril, you look like a raccoon! What happened to your face?”

Behind him, Illya heard Gaby’s poorly concealed smile open into a giggle.


End file.
